YOU'D think, as the greatest of all time, you’d want to leave behind a legacy.

You’d think, when people have spent lifetimes aspiring to – and falling short of – the levels you’ve reached, you’d write a book for the ages.

A blueprint for greatness.

Something people can still refer to generations from now and from which they can extract value and meaning, leadership lessons in a team environment.

The way Vince Lombardi did.

A coach more quoted by other coaches than any in history, despite the best of his body of work in American football coming half a century ago.

Same with basketball icon John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success or Phil Jackson’s Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.

Men whose reflections on their methods and work are as relevant today – in business and sport – as they were when they were on the tools themselves.

That’s what you wish Sir Alex Ferguson had done.

Instead of giving us a few hundred pages of here today and gone by halfway through the first week of the summer holidays.

It might sell a million, it’ll make him a fortune, but the over-riding emotion reading the reaction to Sir Fergie’s autobiography this week has been disappointment.

Partly because a lot of the insight we supposedly got was merely fleshing out the bones of what we already knew.

That he was – still is, judging by the orchestration of his press conference and the avoidance of the questions around John Magnier – a control freak. That he fell out with David Beckham, with Roy Keane, that he had issues with Wayne Rooney.

Also partly because a few of his parting shots were so gratuitous and unnecessary. Like his dismissal of the talents of Steven Gerrard. There was just no need.

Not that he cared, as long as a few scores were settled along the way. But mainly because it never left everyone looking at him the way they SHOULD be looking at him.

As the master of his art.

Don’t get me wrong – by word of mouth, he has been arguably the biggest managerial influence in history. The number of fledgling AND established coaches and bosses who have cited a word of advice here or a phone call there from him when it mattered most is incalculable.

And while a lot of the talk this week – particularly around Keane – has been about loyalty, history has shown Ferguson made very few mistakes when he felt the time was right to move people on.

He got rid of some of the greats at Old Trafford when their time was up in his eyes. Guys like Keane, Beckham, Bryan Robson, Paul Ince, Steve Bruce, Ruud Van Nistelrooy – all dedicated servants, every one of whom at one point would have run through a brick wall head first for their gaffer.

But not one of them ever came back to haunt him or proved he was wrong.

The only player he admitted making a mistake with was Jaap Stam, and even then it was only because hindsight told him how difficult finding a replacement was.

And the only one he’d rather have kept but who left anyway was Cristiano Ronaldo – but for an extraordinary sum of money and a year after he said he wanted out.

In that extra season Fergie persuaded him to stay for? A domestic double, Champions League Final, FIFA World Player of the Year. Fergie’s management of players covering generations has clearly been exceptional, but nowhere near enough of his method or wisdom shines through with any great clarity in his book.

That’s where he could have earned his place on the pantheon of the all-time greats – and not just on the top shelf of every WH Smith in the country.

The book doesn’t diminish what he achieved. Nothing could.

It doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s the greatest these isles have ever produced. His record with Aberdeen and Manchester United is – and will stay – peerless.

It doesn’t tarnish him in my eyes either. It would take more than him scattergunning a few cheap shots around to erase that level of respect.

But the message coming from the book seems to be that to earn that respect, you can’t lose control of even a single thing in your fiefdom for a split second. If you do, it jeopardises the lot.

Whether Davie Moyes chooses to interpret that as a manual for success at Old Trafford, I’m not sure.

Either way, though, it should have been about more than that.

It should have been a lesson in leadership, not an exercise in readership.

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As gestures go, it’s laudable. Every player in the country last weekend wearing a T-shirt and holding up an A4 sheet showing racism the red card.

But what’s needed is very real action by UEFA and FIFA that sends a message that they genuinely abhor racism, not that they pay lip service to it.

That will involve them both growing a pair and taking on the countries where the worst of it exists, not just picking on the soft targets.

It shouldn’t take the threat of some of the planet’s best players boycotting the World Cup to do it. All it needs is a moral compass.

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Usually I’m all for the team over the individual.

But when it comes to Wilshere v Kasami in the goal of the season debate?

Sorry, but the Fulham man has to have it. It was technical perfection, as close to art in sport as you’ll ever see.

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No Brown, no Commons? No matter. Every time you think Celtic may have reached the point where their Champions League steam could run out, they continue to confound.

Ajax are a very decent side. The significance of that win on Tuesday shouldn’t be underplayed. And if Neil Lennon manages to get his side through THIS group in the top two, after what he did last year? They’ll find it almost impossible to keep him around long enough to see if he can do it a third time.

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Another week, another two high-profile howlers from our officials. Every time we see one, it’s a whopper. Like Hibs’ goal or corner-gate at Inverness. Maybe it’s the cynic in me but I hope the lack of competition at the top isn’t stopping supervisors treating them like they should.